Coscarelli was born in Libya and raised in Southern California. Although his family was not connected with the motion picture business, he was fascinated with cameras and filmmaking at an early age. Long before he was old enough to attend film school, his short films, made with the help of neighborhood friends in his hometown of Long Beach, California, were winning prizes on television. At the age of 19, Coscarelli became the youngest director to have a feature film distributed by a major studio when he sold his independently produced drama Jim the World's Greatest, to Universal Pictures. The film was the first collaboration for Coscarelli with actor Lawrence Rory Guy, who went on to achieve horror icon status under the screen nameAngus Scrimm. Jim the World's Greatest was an official selection of the USA Film Festival. Coscarelli is best known for the Phantasm, and its sequels. The original Phantasm was a worldwide critical and box-office success and won the Special Jury Prize at the Festival du Cinema Fantastique at Avoriaz, France. Coscarelli also co-wrote and directed The Beastmaster, which was described by Entertainment Weekly as "a surefire audience favorite." The Beastmaster has spawned two sequels and a television series. Coscarelli was the recipient of the Bram Stoker Award for Best Screenplay for his film Bubba Ho-Tep, which he also directed. Based on a short story by Joe R. Lansdale, Bubba Ho-Tep stars Bruce Campbell, Ossie Davis, and frequent Coscarelli collaborator Reggie Bannister. In addition to being a critical hit, Bubba Ho-Tep was also a festival favorite, playing prestigious international film festivals like the Toronto International Film Festival, SXSW, Florida Film Festival, Brussels International Festival of Fantasy Films, and the Hong Kong International Film festival. At HBO's US Comedy Arts Festival, Coscarelli was the recipient of the Best Screenplay Award. At Montreal's FantAsia Festival, Bubba Ho-Tep was the recipient of the Best International Film award. Coscarelli also directed the premiere episode of the AmericanTV seriesMasters of Horror, titled Incident On and Off a Mountain Road and co-wrote the teleplay with Stephen Romano. In 2008, Coscarelli purchased film rights to the horror novel and internet series John Dies at the End by David Wong. The film was completed in 2011, and released in 2013. In 2018, he published his memoir, True Indie: Life and Death in Filmmaking.
